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Study shows rising food prices not connected to price of corn

The Minnesota Corn Growers Association is touting a study conducted by Texas A&M's Agricultural and Food Policy Center that shows corn prices have had little to do with rising food costs.

Association spokesman Mark Hamerlinck says the study shows the number one cause for higher food prices is skyrocketing energy prices. He says the cost of transporting goods has increased dramatically in the last decade.

"A barrel of crude oil in 1998 was selling for ten or eleven dollars a barrel. And just last week the cost of a barrel of crude oil was a hundred and eleven dollars a barrel. That's a thousand percent percent that its gone up in ten years," said Hamerlinck.

Hamerlinck says oil prices have gone up 37 percent since last summer. Many have blamed food price increases in part on the scarcity of corn, which is being used increasingly for fuel production. But researchers at Texas A&M say the prices of groceries, such as bread, eggs and milk are un-related to ethanol or corn prices.